One of two knives police found at the bedside of Brenda Woloski the night of her killing on Nov. 12, 2016.--NEWS HANDOUT COURTESY COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH
jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel
Noah Bentley has been found criminally responsible, guilty in the brutal November 2016 murder of Brenda Woloski.
“He had the capacity to understand what he did and its consequences, and to know it was wrong,” Justice Glen Poelman of the Medicine Hat Court of Queen’s Bench ruled Friday.
Bentley strangled Woloski before stabbing her 23 times in her home after meeting her during a day of heavy drinking. He confessed to it repeatedly in the 24 hours after his arrest.
Counsel argued Bentley should be found not criminally responsible by means of a mental health crisis that caused him to “snap” and enter a state of disassociation that night, stemming from childhood trauma.
The four-day trial by judge alone heard from two witnesses “psychologist Leslie Block for the defence and psychiatrist Dr. Yuri Metelitsa for the Crown.
Although both were court-approved experts in forensic psychology, Poelman concluded that Metelitsa has “far greater expertise.”
Metelitsa led a team of doctors, nurses and social workers at the Southern Alberta Forensic Psychology Centre that assessed Bentley just three months after the murder “from Feb. 17 to March 27, 2017.
By contrast, Block’s report was not released until Oct. 10, 2018, and was based on two interviews with the accused,” one on June 24, 2018, and the other on July 4, 2018.
“Recency is a factor in making a diagnosis in the time after an offence,” Poelman observed.
Both witnesses agreed Bentley had expressed a desire to be found not criminally responsible and answered their questions in an exaggerated fashion accordingly, but Block saw this as simply a “cry for help,” while Metelitsa regarded it as manipulative.
Poelman emphasized he found Block to be a generally “confident, responsible and well-spoken witness,” but criticized his testimony for an “unduly predisposition to support Mr. Bentley’s defence of not criminally responsible,” which led to an “uncritical reliance on Mr. Bentley’s self-reporting.”
The judge blasted Block for glossing over discrepancies between Bentley’s statement to police and what he told him during their interviews.
While counsel Darren Mahoney argued in trial that Woloski undressing and asking the accused, “Isn’t this what you came for?” triggered Bentley into a traumatic flashback of sexual abuse from his mother, Poelman noted the accused made no mention of this in his repeated confessions to police.
It was only afterwards, when the accused realized he could receive a not criminally responsible verdict, that he played up this angle to the psychologist and psychiatrist.
“Mr. Block did not take the time to review Mr. Bentley’s statements to police, or he simply ignored them,” Poelman concluded.
The detailed confessions Bentley provided to police, in which he was able to describe the chronology of events, what the victim was wearing, how they got to her house, their conservation there, the “gurgling” sound she made while he choked her and a description of the house specific enough that police could find it, suggest he was aware of what he had done, despite being heavily intoxicated.
Although there’s no doubt Bentley was “psychologically troubled,” his “reasonably good recall” in his police statements mean he must have understood his actions’ implications, Poelman ruled.
Lawyers will appear in court Dec. 13 to set a sentencing hearing date for the new year.
In the meantime, Poelman has ordered a forensic assessment of Bentley, which should take a minimum of eight to 12 weeks to complete.
